


Hypnotized By A Strange Delight

by sequence_fairy



Series: Salt Skin [2]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Consensual Thrall, Established Relationship, M/M, Supernatural Ryan Bergara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-02-07 06:44:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21453739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequence_fairy/pseuds/sequence_fairy
Summary: “The thrall means you would do anything for me, anything that I asked of you, absolutely anything,” Ryan says. “Anything. I. Asked.”“I know,” Shane says, “you’ve explained it before.” He lifts a hand to rub at the back of his neck. “I trust you not to ask me to do something I wouldn’t want to do.”Ryan doesn’t look like he believes it can be that simple. It is though, for Shane. He trusts Ryan, always has, and he trusts him in this too.“Shane,” Ryan says, patiently, the way you might explain to a child. “You haven’t got any idea.”Or: Ryan is a Siren with the thrall to match, and Shane wants to explore. Also he's just really into the fucking teeth and no, he is not taking any criticism at this time.
Relationships: Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej
Series: Salt Skin [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1546558
Comments: 25
Kudos: 265





	Hypnotized By A Strange Delight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [commoncookie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/commoncookie/gifts), [justcourbeau](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justcourbeau/gifts).

> I said I would write a sexy part two to [Still Feel the Pull of You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20017588) and here it is.

It’s weeks past The Revelation, as Shane’s taken to calling the night he found out about Ryan’s little secret, and it’s been about that long since Ryan’s done anything remotely fishy. Sometimes, Shane wonders if he’d imagined that whole night in a protracted hallucination brought on by inhaling glitter dust that day on set. Except that he knows he’s not because not two days after that, Ryan had cornered him on their set, one night in the dark, and looked up at Shane with dark dark eyes. 

Shane had wanted before, he knew, but that look, combined with the way Ryan’s hands fit against the jut of Shane’s hips and the way he’d rocked up onto the balls of his feet to draw Shane down to him – it all served to cement that Ryan wanted him back. The swoop of arousal in Shane’s blood is all too easy to remember now. 

Ryan had stepped back and with him had gone all of Shane’s reservations. 

Now though, he’s wondering why he can’t stop thinking about the scales. Maybe it’s the fact that Ryan’s hands are splayed on Shane’s bare thighs. Maybe it’s the way Ryan’s looking up at him from between them, eyes wide and dark and lovely. Maybe it’s the way Shane’s been close to the edge for what seems like hours while Ryan teases and drags sounds Shane never thought he could make out of his throat. 

Ryan’s so good with his mouth, so determined to utterly ruin Shane, so visibly delighted by the way Shane stuffs his fist into his mouth to give himself something to bite down on instead of letting the noise building in the back of his throat out, that Shane can’t help himself when Ryan gets him right back to the razor’s edge and then scrapes his teeth along the bottom of Shane’s cock. 

His orgasm runs into him like a freight train. Shane gasps, his hips jump, and Ryan moans around his dick, swallowing everything Shane can give him. All of Shane’s blood is on fire, all of his nerves are alight, and the only thought in his head is that he kind of wishes Ryan had used his  _ real _ teeth.

Regardless, Shane assumes no responsibility for what comes out of his mouth when he finds his voice after Ryan’s finally sucked his brains out through his dick. 

“Next time,” he says, flopping back onto his couch while Ryan remains crouched between his knees. Ryan’s palming himself over his boxers, and Shane wants to get down there and help, but for the moment, all he can manage is to breathe. 

“Next time,” he repeats, bringing one hand up to push the hair off his forehead, “I want you to use the thrall.” 

The mood shifts immediately. Shane feels it, and feels his blood go cold. Ryan stills. The silence goes brittle between them.

“No,” Ryan says, and gets to his feet. He steps away from Shane, finds the shirt he tossed on the floor behind him and pulls on his pants. He’s stuffing his feet into his shoes before Shane can get himself to his feet. 

“Ry–” Shane’s reaching for him, but Ryan’s already gone. The door to Shane’s apartment closes gently, but it’s echoing loud anyway. 

Shane sinks back onto his couch, bare-assed but still wearing the unbuttoned flannel he’d thrown on over his t-shirt before Ryan had come over. 

“Well, shit,” he says, to no one. 

***

At work on Monday, it’s like everything is normal between them. It seems only Shane can sense the strain in Ryan’s smile, and see the way he holds himself a little further apart from Shane than usual. No one raises any eyebrows or looks at them differently. Shane spends the entire day just this side of abject misery, wallowing in a terrible mire of invisible guilt and trying to figure out how to broach this with Ryan, who doesn’t seem to want to be caught alone with him at all. 

The rest of the week passes in much the same way. 

It’s not until Friday night, when the call goes out for drinks, and Ryan accepts but Shane declines, that Shane realises he’d assumed that Ryan was still on for their pre-arranged (and now an actual date), movies and some beers evening at his place. 

Shane looks at the two words of Ryan’s answer in the slack chat for so long that his eyes blur and he has to blink furiously to re-wet his contacts. Beside him, Ryan doesn’t seem to notice, or care, pecking at his keyboard sporadically like he has been for the last four hours while he edits someone else’s script. 

“Hey Ryan,” Shane says, turning in his chair. Ryan cuts a glance in his direction and reaches up to pull out one earbud. He waits. Shane swallows, mouth dry, and tongue thick. “You know what? Never mind.” 

Ryan raises his eyebrows but doesn’t say anything and cautiously puts his earbud back in before returning to his computer screen. 

That afternoon, Shane leaves work after everyone else. Ryan doesn’t even say goodbye.

***

Shane lets the tension bleed between them for another week, because by then he no longer wants to be the one to give in. Ryan shows no signs of cracking. 

It sucks watching Ryan wall himself away, knowing that Shane broke what they had, knowing that if he’d just kept his mouth shut, they wouldn’t be here on this impasse. Ryan hasn’t looked Shane in the eyes in days, keeps his gaze pinned somewhere over Shane’s shoulder. If they have to talk to each other, he keeps his distance, and hasn’t sent Shane a stupid cat video since the day he walked out of Shane’s apartment. 

Shane misses him. 

Sure, he misses the sex, ‘cause who wouldn’t? Ryan’s great in bed. He’s a giving lover with a dedication to ruining Shane in ways Shane hadn’t previously been able to conceive of. But really, what Shane misses, is their friendship. He misses chatting with Ryan when he needs to stop looking at his computer screen. He misses coffee runs and lunch dates and leaving work together, shoulder to shoulder and laughing the whole way about something dumb. 

Shane sighs, deeply, into his lonely plate of leftovers. He prods at the limp edge of the pot pie he’d thrown into the oven the night before and microwaved for lunch today with the tines of his fork, and then decides he doesn’t want to eat it. He’ll go hungry. 

He’s getting up to dump his plate into the compost when he runs into the object of his thoughts. Shane springs back, too late to save Ryan’s shirt. 

“Oh my god, I’m sorry. Jesus,” Shane says, spinning around to set the plate back down on the table and reaching around Ryan towards the paper towel dispenser on the wall. “Let me just–”

  
Ryan swipes the towels out of Shane’s hands. “I’ve got it,” he says, terse. 

Shane raises his hands in surrender. “Alright,” he says, stepping back. He doesn’t quite know what to do with himself, while Ryan brushes at his shirt with the paper towel, ineffectively. The shirt’s a lost cause, Shane knows; the pot pie was not chicken and Ryan looks like he got in a mud fight with a short person.

Ryan tosses the paper towels in the bin snappishly, and pulls the hem of his shirt out from his body. “Well, this sucks.” 

“I’m sorry,” Shane repeats. “I didn’t see you.” 

“It’s okay,” Ryan sighs. He drops his shirt and pushes one hand through his hair, leaving it to fall in a mess across his forehead. “Guess I’ll have to go find a new shirt, though.” 

Shane catches his eye as he says it, and for a moment it’s like everything else has fallen away. Shane’s mouth curves up into a smile, and he’s on the way to offering Ryan the use of the extra henley he keeps in his desk (you never know what might happen on a given day in their office and Shane has needed an extra shirt on several occasions due to various nefarious shenanigans) before he remembers that they haven’t spoken for almost two weeks. His words get caught behind his teeth when he snaps his mouth shut. 

They stand there, looking at each other for a long moment before Ryan steps around Shane and walks out of the kitchen. Shane looks down at the plate of squashed pot pie on the table and frowns. This will not do. He bins the remains of his lunch, dumps the plate in the sink, ignoring the twinge of guilt for leaving dishes for someone else, and follows after Ryan. 

Shane catches Ryan just before he’s about to turn into the bullpen. “Wait,” Shane says, reaching out to grasp Ryan’s shoulder. Beneath his hand, Ryan stiffens, and Shane lets his grip fall away. “I’ve got an extra shirt in my desk,” Shane says. “Go up to the set, I’ll bring it to you.” 

Ryan looks up at Shane, confusion on his face. 

“This way you don’t have to go out there.” Shane gestures to the bullpen full of people. “Looking like that,” he says, pointing at Ryan’s shirt. 

“Oh,” Ryan says, but he’s already turning to head back the way he came. “Okay.” 

“See you in a sec,” Shane says, and heads for his desk. Once there, he stuffs his and Ryan’s laptops into his bag, grabs Ryan’s mouse and his own headphones and then pulls open the bottom drawer in the cubby under his desk. The extra shirt is there, along with Shane’s stash of secret chocolate, and he rifles through his collection for a moment before selecting something shareable and then kicks the drawer shut and vacates his desk. 

Shane knows no one would question him grabbing Ryan’s things, they do –  _ did _ – this sort of thing for each other all the time before. It’s also not out of character for them to disappear up to the set to spitball bits back and forth while Ryan’s writing. It just seems, now, that there is more weight to this trip up to their set than previous trips with Ryan’s things. Shane ignores the gnawing pit in his stomach and takes the stairs two at a time.

***

“Here,” Shane says, thrusting his shirt at Ryan first thing. Ryan looks up from where he’s sitting on the desk, feet swinging, and hops down, grabbing the shirt out of Shane’s hands.

“I brought your stuff,” Shane says, but trails off while Ryan strips off his dirty shirt and tosses it onto the desk behind him. Ryan’s back is to him. Shane’s eyes catch on the slope of Ryan’s shoulders anyway, and wander down the flex of the muscles along his spine as Ryan pulls on the henley, turning around only once it’s most of the way on. 

“Thanks,” Ryan says. Then, “Why’d you bring my stuff? Did we have a meeting?” 

“No, I–” Shane’s tongue sticks. He swallows. “I wanted to talk,” he says. “Can we?” 

Ryan raises an eyebrow. Shane’s henley is too big on Ryan, and the sleeves come down over his hands. It is all kinds of distracting. 

Shane clears his throat. “I wanted to apologize for the other night,” he says. “I said something stupid, and I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.” 

“I do,” Ryan says, and he scrubs a hand over his face. He straightens his shoulders before meeting Shane’s gaze. There’s an aching something in Ryan’s eyes and Shane wants to close the distance between them. He senses that Ryan wouldn’t appreciate it, so he waits instead.

Ryan spreads his hands in front of himself. “You remember the day I told you what I was?” he asks. 

Shane nods. 

“You remember how you couldn’t resist getting close? How you walked in on me in the shower? How you made me sing for you?” 

“Yeah, of course I do,” Shane answers. He’s not likely to forget. Even now, the visceral memory of wanting to drown himself in Ryan’s voice hasn’t quite left him. 

“The thrall means you would do anything for me, anything that I asked of you, absolutely anything,” Ryan says. “Anything. I. Asked.” 

“I know,” Shane says, “you’ve explained it before.” He lifts a hand to rub at the back of his neck. “I trust you not to ask me to do something I wouldn’t want to do.” 

Ryan doesn’t look like he believes it can be that simple. It is though, for Shane. He trusts Ryan, always has, and he trusts him in this too. 

“Shane,” Ryan says, patiently, the way you might explain to a child. “You haven’t got any idea.” 

“Are you going to make me go and murder people? Are you going to make me walk into the ocean and drown myself? Are you going to stick me with a needle full of heroin?” 

Ryan shakes his head vigorously. There’s the hint of a smile in the side of his mouth, and Shane is glad he tacked the last comment on, because he’d hoped for that reaction.

“So, what’s the hang up then?” 

“My will, my desires, would subsume yours,” Ryan says. “You wouldn’t be able to conceive of saying no, of asking me to stop. There’d be no Shane, only my will applied to your body and your mind.” 

“Again,” Shane says, belabouring this point because it seems like Ryan has not yet managed to grasp what Shane’s saying. “Are you going to ask me to do anything I wouldn’t already want to do?” 

He still doesn’t see the problem with this. He’d figured in their short bout of doing the horizontal tango, that Ryan would have realised that Shane liked to be held down, liked to have his choices narrowed, liked to be reduced to shameless submission to the will of his partner. Maybe Ryan hadn’t figured it out. 

“You wouldn’t be you anymore,” Ryan says, interrupting Shane’s train of thought, his voice flat. He looks up at Shane. 

“It’s just like some kind of spooky subspace,” Shane reasons, waving away Ryan’s protest with one hand. “I like that just fine, I think I’d like this too.” 

“It’s not,” Ryan argues, but he closes the distance between them anyway. There’s a question in Ryan’s eyes, something he wants to ask, and Shane thinks he knows what it is. Ryan doesn’t ask, but Shane knows he’s filing it away for later.

Shane takes his hand, lacing their fingers together. When Ryan’s this close, Shane swears he can almost see the faint impression of the scales along the lines of Ryan’s cheekbones, almost see the delicate shimmer of them just beneath his skin. Ryan breaks their shared gaze to look down at their joined hands and then back up to Shane’s face. “Do you really want to know what it’s like?” 

“All the time,” Shane admits, unable to dissemble. “Ever since that first night, I’ve wanted to know what it would be like to be completely at your mercy.”

Dissembling to Ryan is right out, but lying to himself is so very à la mode, that Shane doesn’t even realise he’s doing it. Wondering what it’s like to be at the mercy of someone who you’ve already fallen for with everything you have, and whose extra quirk has just made you want them more, is not at all an accurate question to even begin to pose. 

Ryan’s eyes dilate and widen. “Oh,” he says, hushed.

“Yeah,” Shane says. They’re standing nearly toe to toe. 

“Now?” Ryan asks, with a sly curve to his mouth. Shane likes him the best like this, daring and unafraid of what might happen. 

“Come over tonight,” Shane suggests. Ryan doesn’t answer, just lifts himself onto his toes and Shane meets him in the middle. Shane’s hands come up to hold Ryan’s waist, palms flattened against the fabric of his borrowed shirt. When the kiss breaks, with Ryan rocking back down onto flat feet, Shane keeps a hold of him. “You have to return my shirt anyway,” he says, and watches as Ryan’s face splits with glee. 

“Mine now,” Ryan says, stepping out of the circle of Shane’s arms. He looks down at himself. “I think you need to lend me your clothes more often.”

Shane agrees, but he keeps it to himself. 

***

Ryan arrives at Shane’s apartment later that night. Shane doesn’t expect him to show up with a bag of recording equipment and he can feel his eyebrows climbing into his hairline as Ryan sets up the microphone and digital recorder. 

“I want you to understand what you’re getting into,” Ryan says, by way of explanation. Shane doesn’t think this is much of an explanation. 

“What do you mean?” 

“You want to know what it’s like under my thrall?” Ryan’s still unpacking gear, talking to Shane over his shoulder.

Shane nods. 

“I’ll show you, but I’m going to record it so I can play it back to you.” Ryan cuts a glance sideways to Shane from where he’s sitting on his couch while he watches Ryan plug cables together. “I won’t hold it against you afterwards if you don’t want to do it again.” 

“Hit me with your best shot,” Shane jokes, but it falls flat as Ryan moves to stand in the centre of the room. Nerves wing up Shane’s spine, and for the first time since he’s proposed this idea, he’s not sure he wants to go through with it. He knows if he said stop now, Ryan would, and he’d never judge, but there’d always be a lingering part of Shane that wanted to know, and Ryan would likely never offer this chance again in the future. Shane steels himself. Against what, he’s not exactly sure. 

Ryan starts to sing.

All at once, Shane can feel his body relaxing back into the couch. A soft, warm fog descends onto his brain, and every thought empties from his head. The feeling of wanting to throw himself into the ocean at the bottom of Ryan’s voice rises in him, settling into his blood. Shane blinks, and then he’s gone. 

When Shane opens his eyes again, he’s on the floor at Ryan’s feet. Ryan’s hand is wound into his hair, fingers flexing against his scalp, and it’s quiet. Ryan must notice the moment that Shane starts to come out of it, because he looks down, lets go of Shane’s hair, and steps around where Shane is kneeling on his living room carpet to turn off the mic and stop the recorder. 

“Shane?” Ryan asks, voice soft. He squats in front of Shane, fingers skating along the edge of Shane’s jaw. Shane leans into the touch, eyes falling shut again. He could stay here forever. The soft fog hasn’t quite lifted off his brain, and Ryan is close enough that Shane can smell the woodsy spice of him. Shane takes a deep breath in and opens his eyes. 

“There you are,” Ryan says, and his eyes crinkle as he smiles. The scales on his cheeks shimmer in the low light of Shane’s living room. Shane’s eyes catch on the sharp edges of Ryan’s teeth.

“Hey,” Shane says. His voice is hoarse.

“You alright?” Ryan’s voice is soft, careful. 

“What happened? I–” Shane stops himself. This does not feel at all like coming out of any kind of subspace he has ever made it into. He’s lost time. He lost himself entirely. He shifts back from Ryan, so he’s sitting on the carpet instead of kneeling. Ryan lets him go, but doesn’t stray far, just sits down, within arm’s reach, keeping his hands to himself. 

Shane lets out a long breath. He can feel Ryan watching him, probably waiting for Shane to lose it and wig out right there in his living room. The freak out is near, Shane thinks, as if it is something tangible that he can touch. It’s close, threateningly close. He could give into it, and it would probably be a relief. He considers letting it happen, letting the panic wash through him, letting it scoop him out and leave him hollow and letting it confirm Ryan’s previous position that the thrall is dangerous, that Shane cannot handle it, and then let the chips fall where they may after that. 

Shane curls the fingers of one hand against the carpet. It feels solid. More solid than the looming cloud of panic just at the edge of his awareness. He leans into the solidity of the carpet, unfurling his fingers and pressing his palm flat against the fibres, feeling the give of the thick pile against his skin. 

Ryan still hasn’t moved. 

How long they sit there in silence, Shane doesn’t know. Eventually, he looks back up at Ryan and is startled to see that Ryan has left the glamour off, that he’s still all shimmer and scales and the delicate pointed ears poking out from where his hair’s gotten a little long on the sides. 

“Oh,” Shane says, unable to help himself. “You’re still–” 

Ryan blinks. His eyes are still tawnier than usual, but the glow is muted. He blinks again and then Shane’s staring at Ryan without all the extra, except that’s not what it is, at all. Ryan with smooth human features and rounded ears and dull teeth is Ryan wearing the mask of humanity. Ryan without all the extra has pointy teeth and ears to match, he has the shimmer of scales on his skin and an unearthly glow in his eyes. 

“Don’t–” Shane hesitates. “Don’t put them away.” 

Ryan’s eyes widen, disbelieving. “I thought you might–that you might not want to see me.” 

“Of course I want to see you,” Shane argues. This is good, the panic dissipates under the clarity of that statement. Shane does want to see him. It occurs to Shane that perhaps he ought to examine why he is so desperately into the scales and the ears. Also the teeth. He’s so very into the teeth. He files that away for later when he is not sitting on the floor of his living room still reeling a little from losing he doesn’t know how long. 

Ryan’s face is flushed, and it carries all the way up to the tips of his ears. They’ve gone pointy again, Shane notices. 

“I like the ears,” Shane says, and Ryan’s surprised wheeze of laughter makes Shane think they can probably navigate this. Shane reaches one long arm out to Ryan, who leans in close enough that Shane can grip his upper arm briefly before letting him go. “I have to get up off this floor,” Shane says, “I’m too old for this.” 

Ryan’s mouth curves in a grin, lips parted just enough that Shane can see the teeth. He looks away immediately, but the swoop of heat in his gut is not so easily deterred. 

Ryan’s hand appears in his field of vision. “C’mon, dude,” Ryan says, and Shane takes his hand, letting Ryan haul him to his feet. Shane sways as he stands. It feels like it has been a long time since he was at his full height. 

Shane’s gaze gets caught on the shimmering webbing between Ryan’s fingers and the way Ryan’s nails have gone sharp and tinted with something close to the colour of his scales, and he wobbles again.

“Whoa,” Ryan says, steadying Shane with a hand on his hip. “Why don’t you sit down?” Ryan suggests, and Shane lets himself be deposited on the couch. Ryan moves away, tugging Shane’s coffee table forward so he can sit on it and face Shane. 

“How–?” Shane isn’t sure what he’s asking. 

Ryan seems to be able to parse the meaning because he looks down at the recorder next to him on the table. “About half an hour.” 

Half an hour. Shane feels unsteady again. He’s lost half an hour and what happened, or at least, the audio of it, is on that tape. He bends at the waist and braces his elbows against his knees, holding his face in his hands. He needs to get a handle on this, or they’re never going to get further than this. 

“Do you need anything? A glass of water?” Ryan reaches out and taps Shane on his denim covered knee with the point of his nail. Shane follows the line of his arm back up to Ryan’s face. He looks concerned, eyebrows drawn down, mouth downturned.

“I’m fine,” Shane says, then amends; “Well, not  _ fine _ -fine. I’m still processing. That was a lot.” 

“I’ve heard that it is,” Ryan says. He leans forward. “Do you remember anything?” 

“I remember wanting to drown myself in your voice,” Shane says. The brain to mouth filter breaking quality of being under Ryan’s thrall makes it very difficult for Shane to couch anything in layers of meaning. “And then I woke up at your feet.” 

Ryan sucks in a breath. He shifts suspiciously on the coffee table. Ryan’s movement makes something warm pool at the base of Shane’s spine. 

“What happened?” Shane asks. Ryan’s reaching for the tape recorder. “No,” Shane says. Ryan stills, fingers poised on the buttons of the device. “You tell me.” Shane looks up and into Ryan’s face. 

“Okay, uh,” Ryan starts, and then brings both of his hands up to scrub them through his hair. When he pulls them away, his hair is a disaster. “You said go, I started to sing, and then, uh,” Ryan stops, he looks down at where his hands are splayed against his thighs. “Are you sure you don’t want to just listen?” 

“I’m sure,” Shane says. He doesn’t want to hear himself on tape. He has a sneaking suspicion about why his voice was so hoarse when he came back to himself. He’s not sure Ryan telling him what happened will be better or worse, but at least this way it’ll be over faster because Ryan will not linger on the telling. 

“You sorta tried to get up, but it was like you couldn’t seem to figure out how to get to me and get standing at the same time,” Ryan says, picking nonexistent lint off his jeans. “Then you kinda slid to the floor and got to me anyway.” 

Shane nods. He figured as much. 

“I don’t–” Ryan starts, still looking down at his hands. After a moment of silent deliberation he meets Shane’s eyes, and there’s some kind of grim determination in his gaze. 

“You begged, Shane, told me you’d do whatever I asked, that you’d please me however I would let you. And I knew you would, because I could see there was no you behind your eyes, just an empty husk. There was nothing to stop me from doing whatever I wanted, and I knew you were deep enough in that you wouldn’t remember at all. That I could do something, that I could–I could have you, here on the floor, and you’d beg me for it, and that when I stopped singing, you’d wake up without a single memory of how it happened, or that it had even happened at all.

“Doesn’t that scare you? Even a little bit?” Ryan’s voice takes on a panicky edge. 

Shane could lie and say it doesn’t, but he finds that lying is too hard in the face of the way Ryan’s hands have gone to clenched fists against his thighs. “Sure it scares me, Ryan,” he says. “I think it would scare anyone to lose time like that. I wasn’t expecting that at all.” 

Ryan’s hands unclench slightly. Shane takes it as a small victory. 

“I still trust you,” Shane says. “I know you wouldn’t take advantage of this.” 

“I could,” Ryan says, but Shane thinks he’s mostly just saying it because he’s still convinced Shane doesn’t understand how vulnerable he will be under the thrall. 

“You won’t,” Shane answers. “Is there a way you can make it like, not quite so much? I don’t want to not remember.” 

Ryan looks taken aback. “You want to do this again?” 

“Yeah, dude,” Shane says, like it’s obvious. “I just want to remember the whole thing.”

“Really?” Ryan looks kind of like he’s been sucker-punched. 

“Really, really,” Shane repeats. He lets one side of his mouth come up in a lopsided grin. Here goes nothing. “I’m kind of like, half in love with you, in case you hadn’t noticed.” 

“Shane,” Ryan breathes, like it’s the only word he can manage to get his mouth around. He swallows, deliberately enough that Shane can hear the click of his throat. “You’re not,” Ryan says, “you’re not. You don’t have to lie to me.” 

“Wait, what?” It’s Shane’s turn at the game of being sucker-punched. 

Ryan shakes his head. There’s something infinitely gentle in his eyes, and he reaches up to touch the line of Shane’s jaw, fingers skating softly across Shane’s skin. “You’re really not.” 

“I know my own mind, Ryan,” Shane says, hotly. He jerks his head back, pulling away from Ryan’s touch.

Ryan shakes his head. “I can’t do this,” he says, and stands. 

“Do you think that I’m only saying this because of some kind of leftover whammying?” Shane asks, getting to his own feet. They’re toe to toe. Shane looks down at Ryan. Ryan looks up at him, his mouth set in a glum line. 

“You’re not in your right mind. It’s like when you tell someone you love them right after an orgasm,” Ryan says. “Oxytocin overload or whatever.”

“It’s not at all like that,” Shane protests. “I’m not enthralled right now, completely un-enthralled even. And anyway,” Shane says, discovering that what he is about to say is the truth just before it comes out of his mouth, “I loved you before you told me what you were.” 

Shane has a front-row seat to the way Ryan’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline and his mouth drops open. 

“So yeah,” Shane says, shifting back a half step so he’s not quite so close to Ryan. He resists the urge to duck his head and hide his face. Ryan’s still gawping at him like a fish out of water. “I caught feelings before all this -” Shane gestures between them with one hand. “-happened.” 

Ryan doesn’t say anything. He looks a little like Shane thinks he might’ve looked when he came out of the thrall at Ryan’s feet earlier. 

“You gonna say something, Ry?” Shane asks, when it doesn’t look like Ryan’s going to manage to achieve coherence anytime soon. “A guy could get a complex.” Shane’s trying to keep this light, but now that it’s out there, on top of everything else, he feels very naked under the continued pressure of Ryan’s gaze. 

“Shit,” Ryan says, finally. “Holy shit.” 

“Like, I don’t want you to feel obligated or anyth– _ mmf _ –”

Shane’s shut up by the press of Ryan’s mouth against his, hot and hungry. Ryan’s hands grab at Shane’s hips, the points of his still sharper than human nails digging in, so much that Shane can feel them through the waistband of his pants. Shane lets his own hands settle against Ryan’s waist; tilts his head and yields to Ryan.

If Ryan only knew, Shane thinks, as Ryan steps forward, and pushes Shane back. They go down in a heap onto the couch, Ryan sprawled, undignified, half in and half out of Shane’s lap. He’s been enthralled since the first day they met, ensorcelled even. Ryan has never needed to use any kind of supernatural assistance to get Shane to follow him into the dark. Or anywhere else for that matter.

Ryan rearranges himself onto Shane’s lap. Like this, they’re at eye-level and Shane brings one hand up to trace the shimmer along the line of Ryan’s cheekbone. The scales feel bumpy and smooth beneath his fingers, and Ryan’s eyes fall shut as Shane’s hand slides back. Ryan shivers when Shane’s fingertips slide into his hair, and brush against the shell of his ear. The choked sound Ryan makes when Shane draws one finger all the way up to the delicate point of his ear is something Shane wants to hear all the time. 

“I don’t need the thrall,” Shane says, mouth close to Ryan’s. He can feel Ryan’s stuttering breath as Shane slides his fingers against the short hair at the base of Ryan’s skull, drawing him in. He doesn’t need it, it’s good without it, will continue to be good without it, but God, Shane wants it. He knows that with it, he’ll stop thinking so hard about this, that he’ll be able to give himself over to the moment in a way he never really can unless he’s with a partner who can break him down to his most basic self. “I want it.” 

“Shane,” Ryan says, his voice breaking gratifyingly. “I can’t believe–” Ryan cuts himself off and closes the distance between them, licking into Shane’s mouth. His knees tighten around Shane’s thighs, and he rocks down onto Shane’s lap. Shane groans into their kiss, the hand in Ryan’s hair tightening. Ryan hisses, and then bites down. Shane’s lip stings. 

“Ryan, Ryan, Ryan,” Shane pants, barely able to form the words between kisses. Ryan keeps kissing him, keeps grinding down against Shane. One of Ryan’s hands comes up to fist in Shane’s hair, nails scratching against his scalp, and Shane rocks up into Ryan, nearly unseating him. They break apart, breathing hard. 

“Okay,” Ryan says. He’s looking at Shane’s mouth. Shane licks his lips and watches Ryan track the movement. “Okay.” 

“Okay?” Shane asks, because he’s suddenly not sure that Ryan means what Shane thinks he means. 

“We can do this,” Ryan says, and then because he can, he leans back in and kisses Shane again, filthy and wet. When he pulls back, he nips at Shane’s lip, reviving the sting from the earlier bite. Shane drops his head back, offering his throat to Ryan in a clear sign of surrender. 

Ryan takes the hint and Shane stops thinking about anything but how to get more of Ryan’s skin under his hands for a long time. 

***

There’s a season of Unsolved to film and other things to handle before they can come back to the idea of Ryan putting Shane under his thrall. In the intervening weeks, there are many conversations. The kind of conversation that Shane usually avoids, but Ryan takes this head on, just like he does everything else. 

(“What can I ask you to do?” Ryan asks, while they’re beside each other at work. 

Shane’s only half listening. “Anything you want, Bergara,” he says, not looking away from the jump cut he’s been trying to time for the last ten minutes.

“I mean, when you’re under my thrall. Are there any hard limits I should know about before we do that?”

Shane chokes on his own spit. Ryan’s hand thumps him, hard, between the shoulder blades.

“You can’t just  _ ask _ people things like that at work, Ryan,” Shane says, once he can breathe again. Shane turns to look at Ryan, who is waiting expectantly, like he hasn’t just asked Shane to lay out his sexual preferences at 10:30 in the morning on a Tuesday.)

(“Should we have a safeword?” Ryan asks, while they’re packing up gear in a rainstorm somewhere outside of Bar Harbour, Maine. Shane fumbles the case he’s lifting in to the back of the SUV they’ve rented, but Ryan’s there to catch it before it hits the ground.

“You think I’ll be able to remember it?” Shane asks, when they’re back at the hotel, both of them wringing out their wet shirts into the bathtub. Ryan’s skin is dewy wet and the scales  _ gleam _ . Shane loves that Ryan has virtually stopped wearing his glamour at all when it’s just the two of them.

Ryan’s mouth twists in a moue of uncertainty. “Mmm,” he says, “maybe not. I’ll think about it.” 

Shane maps the patterns of Ryan’s scales with his tongue that night, leaving Ryan shaking and keening. When Shane slides two fingers into him, slick and hot, Ryan’s spine bows, so prettily, and everything in Shane twangs like a struck chord.)

They’re sitting on Ryan’s couch one night, haphazardly watching something on Netflix, neither of them paying much attention to the screen in front of them, when Ryan goes in for the kill.

“I think we should try it this weekend,” he says, not looking up from his phone.

“Try what, Ry?” Shane asks, setting his phone down in his lap. He turns to look at Ryan. 

“See if I can figure out how to put you under but not so far that you lose yourself entirely,” Ryan answers, and he’s looking back at Shane. Shane’s stomach swoops, and he should be lightheaded from how fast all of his blood rushes into his dick. He’s glad he’s sitting down already, because he probably wouldn’t have stayed standing. 

“Okay,” Shane agrees. 

After that, it’s a whole lot of trial and error. Significantly more error than Shane is expecting. 

The fourth time he comes out of a lighter degree of the thrall, Ryan only barely humming something mostly tuneless, with no memory of the last twenty minutes, Ryan calls a stop to the proceedings. 

“You’re too susceptible to me,” Ryan decides, looking down at Shane where he’s kneeling at Ryan’s feet. 

“I’ll try to be less into you,” Shane retorts. 

“Oh don’t,” Ryan says, and then he grins down at Shane. “I kind of like it.” 

“Of course you do,” Shane says darkly, shifting back so he can push himself to standing. His knees pop as he does. “Can we try this in bed next time? My knees can’t take this.” 

“Yeah, okay,” Ryan says, and leans up to kiss Shane. The kiss is warm, and it sparks in Shane’s blood. Shane lets Ryan kiss him, lets him back Shane up and down the hallway, until they’re passing through doorway into Ryan’s bedroom. Ryan’s hands are everywhere, and Shane can’t get enough of Ryan either.

Shane goes to pull Ryan down onto the bed, but Ryan resists, shoving Shane down instead. “Stay there,” he says, and something thrums in Shane’s blood. Shane tilts his head back to look up at Ryan, which is always a novel experience. Ryan is looking down at him. 

“You’re gorgeous,” Shane says, reaching up to touch Ryan’s face. 

“Shut up, you,” Ryan sing-songs, without heat, leaning into Shane’s hand and letting his eyes fall shut. Any word that Shane wants to say immediately leaves his head. Ryan must notice the way Shane goes rigid, because his eyes open wide. “Oh,” he says, and then reaches down to thread his fingers into Shane’s hair. He pulls, and Shane whines, unable to stop the noise. 

The now familiar soft fog of Ryan’s thrall is descending on Shane, but only in a gentle blanket, just above his awareness. 

“Sha-ane,” Ryan croons, and the fog thickens. Ryan pushes Shane back with a finger to the chest. Shane drops back, falling onto Ryan’s bed with a sigh. “You’re half-way gone already, aren’t you?” Ryan asks, keeping a soft lilt in his voice. He doesn’t seem to expect Shane to answer, which is good because Shane’s been told to shut up and there are exactly zero words in his head. 

“Okay,” Ryan says, and steps back. The fog lifts a little and Shane gets the impression of Ryan stripping off his shirt. Ryan climbs onto the bed beside Shane. “You’re gonna love this, baby,” Ryan croons, right into Shane’s ear. 

When Shane swims back up to awareness again, Ryan’s got them situated on the bed, and Shane’s naked. He doesn’t remember taking off his clothes, but it’s fine because Ryan’s got one hand around him and Shane knows about gift horses and mouths. Ryan’s down to his underwear. Shane’s hips buck into the hand Ryan has wrapped around his dick. 

“There you are,” Ryan says, smiling at Shane. Shane can only smile back at him, and arch into the grip of Ryan’s hand. 

“You’re so lovely like this,” Ryan says, sweeping his other hand up Shane’s side. “Tell me what you want,” Ryan says, the words gently swung into an easy rhythm. 

Shane can do nothing but obey. “I want you to suck me off,” he says, voice going tight and strained as Ryan’s grip tightens and Ryan’s mouth finds Shane’s nipple. Ryan looks up when Shane doesn’t say anything else, and the view is so devastating that Shane can’t figure out where to focus. 

“Keep going,” Ryan says, voice gone warm and dark. The scales across his shoulders shimmer as he moves over Shane. 

Shane throws his head back into the pillows. “You’re gonna be the death of me,” he says, and Ryan laughs. It’s low and throaty and Shane feels the breath of it against his chest, as Ryan dips his head back down. 

Ryan hums as he shimmies down Shane’s body and the air goes dense and muted around them. “Just this, then?” Ryan asks, but doesn’t give Shane a chance to answer before rising up and swallowing Shane down in a single swift move. All the air goes out of Shane’s lungs like he’s been punched and he can’t bite back the groan that follows. One of his hands comes up to fist in his own hair, the other curving around the back of Ryan’s head. Against his wrist, he can feel the delicate point of Ryan’s ear, and along the inside of his thighs, the ridges of the scales crowding in rows across Ryan’s shoulders and down his upper arms. 

Ryan keeps humming. Shane sinks deeper into the cloud, nothing to think about but the wet heat of Ryan’s mouth and the gentle vibrations of Ryan’s humming around his dick. He can feel the fog thickening, feel himself coming untethered, and then there’s Ryan’s teeth, pointed and delicate. It’s a gentle imagining of a threat, but it undoes Shane all the same. 

“Ry– _ Ryan _ ,” he gasps, and then he’s coming and Ryan’s still humming and the fog takes Shane with it. 

When Shane comes back to himself, Ryan is curled in close, one hand carding slowly through Shane’s hair, the other resting on Shane’s stomach and their ankles tangled together. Shane can feel him, still hard, against his hip. 

“Whew,” Shane says, with a long exhale. Ryan presses in closer, so he can nuzzle at Shane’s cheek, and then drops his head down into the hollow of Shane’s throat. Shane lifts a hand, ignoring the way it trembles, and pushes it through his hair. Ryan nips the soft skin under Shane’s ear and Shane hisses, squirming away from Ryan’s teeth. 

“You’re back then,” Ryan says, lifting his head to look at Shane. 

“Yeah.”

“How’re you feeling?”

“Like you sucked my brains out through my dick,” Shane admits, and basks in the joy of Ryan’s startled laughter. Ryan rolls away onto his back, and covers his eyes with one hand. 

Ryan sobers after only a moment. “No, really though,” he says, rolling back onto his side so he can face Shane. Shane turns his head. 

“I’m alright. Sorry I let it get me at the end,” he says. 

Ryan’s brows furrow. “Only at the end?” 

“Yeah,” Shane says, stretching his feet. The slide of his calves against Ryan’s is delicious. “I remember most of it. Missed you getting me naked,” he says, and then looks down the length of Ryan’s body. “Missed you getting yourself naked, too.” 

“Oh, well, you were already under by then,” Ryan explains. He stretches, luxurious, against the bed. Shane’s eyes are stuck on the way Ryan’s cock rests, too heavy to stand, against his stomach. There’s no urgency in the way Ryan is moving, but Shane can sense the restlessness just beneath Ryan’s skin.

Shane skims a hand down Ryan’s flank, and then pushes him over onto his back. Ryan goes, easy as anything and Shane follows. He looks down at Ryan, spread under him, all that glorious skin, the scales that caress the edges of Ryan’s form, the way they catch the muted light and throw it back, a shimmering iridescence. 

“Beautiful,” Shane murmurs, leaning down so he can nose along the side of Ryan’s neck. Ryan arches under the touch, lifts one of his hands to get it into Shane’s hair. Shane catches it in one of his, pushing it down and back, fingers wrapped around Ryan’s wrist, and presses it against the bed. 

“You said earlier that you didn’t know if I wanted to see you,” Shane says, voice a low rumble. Shane trails the tip of his tongue along the line of Ryan’s collarbone, feeling the pattern of the scales in contrast to the smooth skin on either side. Ryan shivers and groans. 

Shane leans up and in, ghosting a kiss to Ryan’s lips, pulling back just as Ryan’s mouth opens to kiss Shane back. “I always want to see you,” Shane says, breath hot against Ryan’s lips. Ryan’s answer is a shuddering gasp, broken in the middle by the way his hips come up to meet Shane’s in a brief slide of electric friction.

“Fuck,” Ryan hisses, dragging the word out long. Shane grins. Ryan’s flushed all down his chest. It sets off nicely against the gold-green shimmer of his scales and Shane sweeps his hands down Ryan’s chest. Ryan arches into the touch, the whole length of him turning to a long line of heat against Shane’s front. 

It’s nothing after that to get a hand around Ryan, so Shane does, and Ryan goes taut beneath him. It looks like every scale is trembling, like Ryan is made of shaking light, and Shane watches, awed, as Ryan comes apart at the seams. 

After, when they’ve both caught their breath, Shane speaks first: “I think you could actually drown me, and I don’t think I’d care in the slightest.” 

“I would,” Ryan argues, rolling onto his side so he can look at Shane, head propped up on one hand. “You’re kinda stuck with me, big guy.” 

“Stuck with a fish person,” Shane says, rolling back onto his back, dramatically draping his forearm over his face. “Whatever have I done to deserve this?” 

Ryan’s fingers find the tender spot beneath Shane’s ribs and dig in, until Shane’s squirming way, laughter hot on the heels of his breathless noise of indignation. It devolves from there, with Ryan determined to find the best spots to dig his fingers in and Shane not trying all that hard to get away. Eventually, Ryan pins him, Shane’s hands pulled up over his head and the slide of their bodies together is enough that Shane thinks he might be able to get interested again. 

Ryan’s face softens slightly, gaze gentling into a look infused with such tenderness it makes all the soft places in Shane’s chest ache. “I love you,” Ryan says, and in the words Shane can hear the far away rush of the sea. Ryan leans in. The kiss is light, just a meeting of their mouths, and before Shane can properly enjoy it, Ryan’s pushing up and off him. 

“You hungry?” Ryan asks, sliding off the bed and looking around for his pants. Shane’s stomach rumbles in response and Shane looks down in surprise. Ryan snickers, and tosses Shane’s own pants at him. “I’ll order something,” Ryan says, waving his phone at Shane as he’s leaving the room and Shane slumps back onto the bed. He lies there for a long moment before reaching his arms back up over his head and letting the stretch pull all along his spine and down through into his toes. 

They’re going to keep practicing, Shane thinks, because God help him, he is really into the fucking teeth.

**Author's Note:**

> Please come and chat with me about my fic on [tumblr](http://sequencefairy.tumblr.com) or on [twitter](https://twitter.com/warpspeed_chic).


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